epresentative say for you on the
floor of the next Congress, as he has said here today in the shadow of
these mighty oaks of your Neosho, "no reconstruction except on the basis
of the ballot in every loyal hand, black and white." Then will your
senator[135] echo your voice from his seat in the Capitol, as he did the
other day in old, Faneuil Hall, when he said, "the price of our
victories is lost unless we give the negro the homestead, the musket,
and the ballot."

And then will your other senator,[136] who has not spoken since he, with
his colleagues in the Senate, said, "colonize" the faithful, loyal
blacks; since he said, admit Louisiana and Arkansas back into the Union
on the vote of the merest minority of their freshly-oathed white
men--then will he say "no reconstruction without negro suffrage." But,
good people, I charge you, suffer not this man to return to his seat in
the Senate, until he has not only repented and confessed, but given sure
promise forever to forsake his old sins of "white suffrage" and "black
colonization." You owe it to yourselves and your country to see that
your entire representation in the next Congress is right on this one
vital question of reunion. Tell your senator if he must advocate a class
and caste government in the rebel States, it must be loyal blacks, not
disloyal whites. If he must colonize somebody, it must be the cowed,
unconverted rebels, the anti-negro-equality white faces. Tell him
henceforth to speak and vote to disfranchise, and drive out if need be,
the persons who make war and oppress and outrage, and are resolved not
to give "fair play" to peaceable, industrious citizens. You have but to
speak and you will be obeyed, for it is the people's will, not that of
their servants, which is law.

Now, a word on your State legislature: One of the first reports that met
my ear on my arrival in your State last winter, was that the Republicans
of Kansas, almost in a body, had voted against a bill for "negro
suffrage," and that they voted thus for the reason that the question was
introduced and urged by the opposition party of the State. My humble but
earnest advice to you is that you permit those delegates who voted
against right, against justice, against equality to all men, for so
paltry a reason, henceforth to remain quietly at home. Teach them and
all other aspirants for your suffrages that your representatives must
speak and vote for the right, though the arch-demon from the p